If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

hive to small

I am a first year beek. I have two 5' handmade KTB hives and two warre hives. I installed two 4# pkgs in the two KTB hives and installed two nuc's in the warre hives. All are doing great. I was lucky enough to get my first swarm in early June. Since i wasn't prepared for the swarm i installed it in the other end of one of my KTB hives thinking at some point I would just do a combine. They are both doing so well that i am running out of room. The swarm side is about to fill it's 17th bar. the pkg side is on it's 20th bar. I only have 3 empty bars left. Should i hurry and make a new hive and tranfer the swarm side into it. Or can i remove some bars of honey and somehow store them to go back in this winter. I am in southwest Montana and don't know what i will need for feed to get through the winter. They are building a new bar every 5 days so time is short. Despite the drought the flow right now is great.

Re: hive to small

Option 1 is to harvest and store the bars if you have a way to do that. I put them into a suitably large "Rubbermaid" container for short term storage. Wax moths will be an issue this time of year, however. If it was cold weather, I'd say store in an unheated building, but in August that's not an option. If you have freezer room, comb can be stored in the freezer. An added benefit is that freezing will kill wax moth eggs and larvae.

Option 2 is to harvest, crush-and-drain to get the honey, and store the honey to feed back later. I use the "baggie feeder" method with honey and think it works well. Even if the honey you get is mixed with pollen (making the honey unpalatable for human use), the bees can use it fine. If the honey is not ripe enough (low enough moisture content) for room temperature storage, store it in the freezer.

Re: hive to small

how are they doing on stores?
how long till you anticipate your summer flows to be done and you need to start feeding for winter?

I started robbing bars of comb to make room mid summer...now I'm feeding like crazy trying to ensure I have enough to overwinter. kind of a fine balance I guess.... I took them during the main flow....what honey they should have had was spent making comb.

Re: hive to small

Since i'm new I don't know what I'm going to need. We should have a decent flow through Sept. I figure right now i have around 80 lbs of honey per hive. The late alfalfa is still in bloom. And there are still alot of other wild flowers still around. I didn't plan on feeding until the end of Sept. Do you think i should pull them and freeze them or just put them in the big hive that has lots of room.

Re: hive to small

If I didn't want a new hive now, I'd put in a screen for a couple of days to separate the two hive before/after my having killed one of the two queens. Then when I removed the screen wire, it'd be one hive w/one queen that they all accepted.